Caesaria (thou canst not die by traitors' hands)
by Hellsig Otoupeim
Summary: The only thing that will stop her is death.


Disclaimer: I do not own Reyna, nor do I own any of the PJO characters you might recognise. I don't own Shakespeare either, so the italicised quotes sadly aren't mine own. I'm just making dunes out of their sandcastles.

* * *

 **Caesaria (thou canst not die by traitor's hands)** **  
**

The only thing that will stop her is death.

* * *

 _(double, double toil and trouble) McBeth_

* * *

"_Leave." It's a whisper, but it hits Jason with the strength of a hurricane. (Butterfly wings.) He tries to argue, perhaps tell her he never meant to (to what? Never meant to hurt her and leave her and break her; for all she remains standing and strong and alone?) His blue eyes beg but Reyna is merciless. "Leave." It's not so much a request as it is a command, a command as it is a beg; but Jason cannot hear that, cannot hear the loneliness and the anger and the pain when all he can feel is the thrumming of blood in his ears.

He has shattered what there was, let it slip between his fingers as in a dream and Jason cannot help but feel guilt. (Not for his part in this mess, because he was a toy of the gods and a weapon though never a boy - but he feels guilt nonetheless, because someone needs to feel guilt over what happened and Reyna clearly doesn't. Jason will shoulder the guilt.) He leaves.

The door closes, and he wonders if he should have, but it is already too late.

* * *

 _(what I do to spite the world) McBeth_

* * *

If she were to listen to her brain, her practical, logical, strategic brain; she would not let the Greeks into Camp. (As it is, she does not let them past the Pomerium armed. She forgets for a second that demigods are weapons.) If she were to listen to her brain, she wouldn't let Jason into New Rome but Reyna does not, for once, listen to her beautiful and sharp brain. Instead, she goes with the ringing of steel and the battle honed reflexes that tell her, tell her because it is an order she couldn't deny even if she wanted to, that she must let them through. The Legion is wide eyed; but their Praetor goes with the battle, daughter of Bellona that she is, and she will never do what the world expects of her. (She might go down into history as a practical, logical, powerful woman; but people will forget that it wasn't logic or practicality or even power that saved the demigods. It was instinct, the very knowledge in the core of her bones that war was brewing and she would rather stand with the Greeks than against them when Gaea rose.) She is a daughter of Bellona and, whilst she cannot fly or raise the dead or talk to horses; she can lead into war.

She is a daughter of Bellona, elected in a time of peace and she wonders if this is why she is leading them to battle.

* * *

 _(the wind hath spoke aloud at land) Othello_

* * *

She should be in Rome. She should be in Rome, leading her people and showing them the reasons why exactly they ought to ally with the Greeks instead of chasing after this whimsy statue; except that she isn't in the city of the Seven Hills, she isn't home but in the middle of nowhere with a son of Pluto who's turned out to be a son of Hades and she has not bloody idea when - if ever - they will make it back. She has abandoned Rome.

She should be home, in Rome, leading her troops to victory instead of fighting to stay alive every day. She is Praetor - so what is she doing here, here where there is no one to lead and no one to help but a little silent boy with a too big statue and an annoying satire. She should be in Rome.

(She has never felt more alive than here, hiding and fighting and free.) Reyna is tired of standing tall and leading, she is tired of taking on a burden meant for two and whilst she can feel herself stretch so thin se thinks she will snap; Reyna knows that she is queen of the Legion and Emperor of New Rome, and snapping cannot be. The wind whispers things of home and war and a Legion falling apart, but Reyna focuses ahead on the giant Parthenos and she knows, she knows she will succeed in bringing peace to her people. She is Reyna and the queen of New Rome. How could she do anything but succeed?

* * *

 _(I'll not to bed tonight; leave me alone) Romeo and Juliet_

* * *

She is tired. Not tired in the 'go to sleep' way, because Reyna has had enough coffee to move right beyond this, but tired in the 'the world has worn me out' way that only people a lot older than she is should ever get. Reyna is tired and tried and trialled - found wanting by her own critics and she is, will always be, the harshest of her dissenters. Reyna demands nothing short of perfection, because there is a peace in perfection, one she has only achieved through war and pens are not her weapons; but she tries. She tried.

Reyna swapped her sword for a pen and learnt how to sign things with the same ease she sheaths her sword. She has callouses on her fingers from where the plastic chafes and her muscles ache from sitting inside all day. Her neck strains and it is not under the weight of her armour or the grandeur of her shield. Her neck bends over paperwork; though really it bends from the magnitude of her despair. Reyna is tired, tired of the world and of the people within it and if it were not for the Legion - the Legion, not the Legionnaires - she would be long gone. Her love is to Rome, not to her people, and it is scary to her that she has become so jaded. (Surely Rome is her people?)

Reyna is tired, tired of the peace and of the paperwork and of the tension from the brewing war. She will not sleep. She fears that, were she to close her eyes and rest her head, Reyna would never wake up.

* * *

 _(will you walk out of the air, my Lord? / Into my grave.) Hamlet_

* * *

Then there is the Battle.

It is the Battle, Battle with a capital 'B' because in the Battle Reyna is alive. She is burning and breathing and beguiling; all sharp strokes and whispering steel and battle instinct; and there is something so inherently beautiful about seeing the proud daughter of Bellona so feral and yet composed, so strong and yet febrile as she fights, fights for the world and peace and freedom - but ultimately fights for the fight. She is a daughter of Bellona and a Commander of War and if there is one place Reyna will come alive and rule supreme; it is not Rome. It is the Battle. She is the Battle.

Reyna thinks her mother must be whispering in her ear, for all Bellona has been silent for a long time, because her mind is sharp and her movements are smart. She is a Leader and a Commander and a Queen; all in one instant that makes her beyond anything seen. She will lead and Reyna only knows victory.  
Once, Jason stood beside her. It was a long time ago, far before he had left and allowed fragile glass to shatter into a thousand shards of light, but now he thinks he can still see some of the slivers beneath her skin, jagged and cutting her open and making her shimmer in the summer air. Once, Jason stood beside her. Now her side is empty. Where he would have gotten her to stop and take back her breath; Jason knows that the only thing now that will ever stop Reyna, Queen of the Legion and Empress of New Rome, is Death.

He prays it comes late.

* * *

 _(et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!) Julius Caesar_

* * *

The only thing that will stop her is death.

It is March the Fifteenth and Reyna sings under her breath, as she passes by the rubble of New Rome. There is something light-hearted in her chest, as if the great pulling weight that had momentarily lifted during the Battle and come back full force was now slowly ebbing away. She thinks she is healing, thinks that the scars of New Rome will disappear and her own with it, but Reyna is a daughter of War - and that means she has never been too good at the feeling thing. The lightness in her chest is not from elation or peace of respite.

"_beware the Ides of March." Octavian told her the day before with a strange smile on his face. Reyna knows that snakes always plot and power always strikes the hungry in the shadows; but she is a daughter of War and the Leader of New Rome - and for some reason, in her head, it equates to the certainty that Rome will never turn on her. She loves Rome with all her heart, loves Rome far more than the people inhabiting her bosom and whilst it is dark and twisted and cold; Reyna will be the best leader of New Rome. (She loves Rome and not the names and faces that make it; and that gives her a scary amount of clairvoyance.)

The Senate House is cold and dark, as it often is, but there is a movement in the shadows and Reyna tenses. (Beware the Ides of March.)

"_the Ides of March have come." she announces into the darkness - more as a mean to buy herself time than in order to engage her killers in a strange parallel with history; but she should know better than to expect Octavian to pass by the occasion for dramatics.

"_aye, Caesaria - but not gone."

Caesar was stabbed thirty three times. Reyna only gets twenty one.

* * *

 _(stoop, Romans, stoop, and let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood.)  
_

* * *

Not even death could stop her.

* * *

 _(Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands, unless you bringst them with thee.)_

* * *

They find her, the woman, dead amongst a group of traitors. They find her, the Queen, pale and regal - sword held firmly in her hand and the purple dyed red with her blood. Her cheeks are white and her hair dark and she looks made of marble. She is beautiful. They find her, the daughter of Bellona, surrounded by her fallen enemies in a funeral pyre they do not dare move from the Senate, for there is something oddly haunting about the echo of the past. They burn her there, on the steps of power and although it shouldn't be possible, the entirety of New Rome squeezes into the suddenly tiny Senate House.

She burns where she fell and they put her name on the ground, carve her down into the foundations of New Rome, and this is her. This is Reyna.

'Reyna Caesaria' they write, 'Praetor of New Rome, Daughter of Bellona.' And then, as an afterthought: 'Queen of the Legion.'

Her legend lives on.


End file.
